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The difference is a Review Paper is intended to be a review of a particular subject -- finding and synthesizing a number of papers, from different authors and backgrounds, into a single collective result. A good Review Paper is actually quite useful. Sometimes one digs up very old or obscure, but valuable, papers. Other times one can use them to chart the state of the art. Finally, the best review paper can actually propose a hypothesis of its own, combining other researchers' limited perspectives of seemingly non-overlapping problems into a single, unified approach.

A Letter is a bit vague. Some journals call this a "Rapid Communication." It's intended to be a less thorough paper in response to brand new results or in a rapidly evolving field, and as such is generally more thesis than hypothesis, inviting follow-up. Often a "Letter" will be revised or added to by the original authors. Bazant and Zhou is one example of this, originally submitted only days after September 11th, and then given some stout appendices later with more thorough calculation and reasoning.

Dang....they have 200 of these journals. You wonder if that pays for advertisements across the board or in specific journals? You realize that if they charged $600 dollars per contributor and published 5 every quarter in 200 journals they would make (5*600)200=X. Then calculate X*4 and you get what this company would potentially make before factoring in advertisements. This could potentially be among the most profitable journal publishers. Specifically when you factor in an extremely low overhead of publishing to the web as oppposed to print.

__________________"Burning people! He says what we're all thinking!" -GLaDOS

Thanks Mackey. When I heard it was to be an Article in a Peer Reviewed Journal I was think a real research article in a major Journal. I guess that was putting the bar a little high for him.

Do you think that any real Journal would be interested in a paper refuting the collapse as a CD? If so, perhaps one of our engineers might like to submit and see what happens.

__________________It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. -- JayUtahI am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. -- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)My Apollo Page.

Over at 911Blogger several of the comments to Professor Jones' post have mentioned a similar idea. They seem to think that because Jones has framed his "letter" as points where he and NIST agree, his work is somehow immune from criticism by us because any such criticism would also be directed at NIST. This is, of course, untrue. But the obsession with being debunked is strong among the members of the "truth movement", and I can only speculate why. I wonder if this is a result of having so many of their other claims dismantled that they seek "debunk-proof" methods (such as publishing in a "peer-reviewed journal"). The logical question is why they don't just research their claims first; then the rate of debunking would decrease significantly.

Do you think that any real Journal would be interested in a paper refuting the collapse as a CD? If so, perhaps one of our engineers might like to submit and see what happens.

I don't think that result on its own is sufficiently interesting from a scientific standpoint. If you demonstrated techniques for CD in very tall structures, or something about building kinetics like Dr. Seffen did, that might be worth publishing with the CD story as a footnote. Otherwise, there's just not enough content there, in my opinion.

I don't think that result on its own is sufficiently interesting from a scientific standpoint. If you demonstrated techniques for CD in very tall structures, or something about building kinetics like Dr. Seffen did, that might be worth publishing with the CD story as a footnote. Otherwise, there's just not enough content there, in my opinion.

I figured that would be the likely answer.

It would be safe to say that the title to this thread is a little wrong thopugh. It would seem that Jones' work was not a "Technical Paper", and the Journal doesn't appear to be a "Mainstream Journal" either unless that term is used to me any non-CT one.

__________________It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. -- JayUtahI am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. -- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)My Apollo Page.

__________________I said lots of things in NPH that I would not say today and that I did not repeat in NPHR, where I specifically corrected at least some of the errors I had made in that earlier book, written 5 years ago.
-David Ray Griffin-

I gave two quotes from the Popular Mechanics article where the term "pancake" was used. Here they are:

"[i]Unable to absorb the massive energy... [snip]

You left out the first sentence. Was that on purpose?

Originally Posted by Popular Mechanics

Once each tower began to collapse, the weight of all the floors above the collapsed zone bore down with pulverizing force on the highest intact floor. Unable to absorb the massive energy, that floor would fail, transmitting the forces to the floor below, allowing the collapse to progress downward through the building in a chain reaction. Engineers call the process "pancaking," and it does not require an explosion to begin, according to David Biggs, a structural engineer at Ryan-Biggs Associates and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) team that worked on the FEMA report.

"When you have a significant portion of a floor collapsing, it's going to shoot air and concrete dust out the window," NIST lead investigator Shyam Sunder tells PM. Those clouds of dust may create the impression of a controlled demolition, Sunder adds, "but it is the floor pancaking that leads to that perception."

So Shyam Sunder, despite being part of the NIST, which ruled out the "pancake collapse theory", is now inexplicably supporting the "pancake collapse theory" because he used the word "pancaking". How does that work? Have you considered that you might be entirely mistaken about what the "pancake collapse theory" is? Describing the progression of the global collapse as "pancaking" does not mean that one is advancing the "pancake collapse" theory of FEMA.

Originally Posted by tanabear

So what theory did Popular Mechanics advance for the destruction of the towers, the Pancake Collapse Theory or the Pile-Driver Theory?

There's no such thing as the "Pile-Driver Theory". When global collapse began the entire upper block (the floors above the impact region where the columns failed) was no longer supported, so it fell as a single mass, sequentially crushing each of the intact floors below it and adding the mass of each crushed floor to itself as it progressed downwards. This is often described as "pancaking", and is how tall buildings collapse. It is not a "theory", and it is exactly what PM described above.

NIST also describes this as "pancaking":

Originally Posted by NIST NCSTAR 1-3C Sect 3.5.3

Exterior panels from WTC 1 were analyzed to determine if different failure mechanisms were observed for those panels above the impact region and those located below. There were 64 observations from the 12 panels at or below the 95th floor and 74 from the remaining 11panels above the 95th floor. Figure 3-15 spatially displays this information for WTC 1 near the impact region of the north face. Both pictorially and statistically, below the impact zone, the majority of floor truss connectors were observed to be either bent down or completely missing. Failure of the gusset plate welded to the top truss chord was again almost exclusively observed regardless of location. This may be a result of overloading the lower floors as the floors above were "pan-caking." Again, the data for Type B and Type D floor truss connectors was too limited to define any sort of pattern.

That is what I wrote in a previous post. "The initiation has been theorized either to be truss failure or column failure."

FEMA's "pancake collapse theory" is this: truss connection failures from thermal deformation of floors in the impact region, where the fire was, caused individual floors to detach from the columns and collapse on the floors below, at some point overloading one of them to the point where global collapse was initiated with a "pancake" phenomenon. The theory was never given any sort of official name, but the vague term "pancake collapse theory" has stuck.

NIST showed that this theory was incorrect, because the weight of only a few floors detaching and collapsing in the impact region was determined to not be enough to initiate a "pancake collapse", and because the truss connections were actually observed not to fail but rather to stay connected to the perimeter columns, so that when thermal deformation of the floor trusses made entire floors sag, it actually pulled the perimeter columns inwards to the point where they could no longer support the mass of the floors above (the upper block).

Originally Posted by tanabear

However, your statement that NIST was not tasked with modeling the global collapse is your opinion. They wrote that one of the goals of their investigation was to determine

"why and how the WTC 1 and 2 (the WTC towers) collapsed after the initial impact of the aircraft, and why and how WTC 7 collapsed;"

They theorized as to "why", inward bowing of the perimeter columns, but not "how" the buildings collapsed. As well, they are still working on WTC7.

They know how the building collapsed. They were not tasked with modeling the entire collapse, and so they didn't. WTC7 has nothing to do with this thread.

So what's the betting that a new 'truther' will emerge with the tired old arguments and eventually it'll get around to us asking why the experts in the 'truth' movement haven't had any of their work peer reviewed to which the response will now be "Oh yes they have!" and the argument will then descend into a rehash of this thread.

We've seen it before with the whole Architects and Structural Engineers argument. We ask why there aren't any and then the 'truth' movement throws up A&E911'truth' which is then found to be seriously flawed in both it's membership and it's claims, but that doesn't matter to 'truthers' as all they need is for it to exist because then they can cite it and watch the debate descend into a rehash of every other thread regarding the flaws in A&E911'truth'.

The 'truth' isn't about the truth, it's about winning an argument by attrition. Say something is true enough times, regardless of the repeated arguments countering it, and it will become accepted as 'truth' by those eager to believe.

See, I was going to say that I can understand why Dr. Jones would want to publish in a paper that would be accessible by the majority of folks in the "Truth Movement", but I was wondering why legitimate open journals, as opposed to vanity publications, would charge the author instead of simply having some advertising to cover their expenses.

I thought it might be some sort of academic faux-pas to have advertisers, and that might explain it. But apparently that isn't the case here. So what is the deal?

I agree. This is why I'm still holding out some optimism. It is possible that the Bentham folks really do want to be a quality journal. If so, they will demonstrate it by responding to professional criticism and applying a high standard of quality.

For the record, Mahmood Alam is the gentleman who responded to my e-mail. It would be unfortunate if he was the real brains behind the operation and all the other professors were simply window-dressing, but so far I have no evidence that this is taking place. I give Mr. Alam credit for acknowledging my letter quickly, that's a good start.

Mahmood Alam responded to me as well. He called me "dear Professor", eventhough I had made no mention of my profession or education in the initial e-mail I sent them.

Mahmood Alam responded to me as well. He called me "dear Professor", eventhough I had made no mention of my profession or education in the initial e-mail I sent them.

I think that's just good PR. The British -- especially the ex-British former colonials --- are often VERY title conscious and will get deeply offended if you don't call them by their proper title. But they get less annoyed if you "promote" them by using a title they don't have. Since a lot of the correspondants any journal gets are "professors," it's a safe bet --- the professors will be mollified and the mere lecturers will be flattered.

__________________I said lots of things in NPH that I would not say today and that I did not repeat in NPHR, where I specifically corrected at least some of the errors I had made in that earlier book, written 5 years ago.
-David Ray Griffin-

Maybe the issue is that Jones can NO LONGER write publishable research. Perhaps he had some sort of brain damage, maybe a silent stroke, maybe Alzheimer's. Because as poor as his published work generally was, it just was not this bad.

-Ben

__________________For what doth it profit a man, to fix one bug, but crash the system?

Maybe the issue is that Jones can NO LONGER write publishable research. Perhaps he had some sort of brain damage, maybe a silent stroke, maybe Alzheimer's. Because as poor as his published work generally was, it just was not this bad.

This I generally doubt. I'm sure Dr. Jones is familiar with the idea of co-authors. If his ideas were sound, he would be able to get someone to help him whip them into chape. If his ideas had gone completely round the bend, he would be unlikely to come up with the cunning plan of a vanity journal....

This I generally doubt. I'm sure Dr. Jones is familiar with the idea of co-authors. If his ideas were sound, he would be able to get someone to help him whip them into chape. If his ideas had gone completely round the bend, he would be unlikely to come up with the cunning plan of a vanity journal....

I agree. So what is going on here? It doesn't matter if he's evil, if he's convinced or if he's just seeking legitimisation; he's going about achieving any of these goals the wrong way.

How can someone clearly capable of writing real papers and getting them published in real journals, and who must, by his profession, know and understand publishing and peer-review, have sunk to such depths of ineptitude?

__________________- ""My tribe has a saying: 'If you're bleeding, look for a man with scars'" - Leela, Doctor Who 'Robots of Death'.

For the record, Mahmood Alam is the gentleman who responded to my e-mail. It would be unfortunate if he was the real brains behind the operation and all the other professors were simply window-dressing, but so far I have no evidence that this is taking place.

Why would that be unfortunate? If Mr. Alam spots a business opportunity (low-cost scientific publishing, possibly motivated by the idea that scientists in the Third World can access more information for free) and hires appropriate experts to help him run it while he manages the "business" aspect of it, I don't see that as a bad thing.

If I decided that what my hometown really needed was a good Thai restaurant, so I decided to start one and hired the best cooks I could find in Bangkok -- does the fact that I myself can't boil an egg detract from my idea?

I agree. So what is going on here? It doesn't matter if he's evil, if he's convinced or if he's just seeking legitimisation; he's going about achieving any of these goals the wrong way.
How can someone clearly capable of writing real papers and getting them published in real journals, and who must, by his profession, know and understand publishing and peer-review, have sunk to such depths of ineptitude?

Not if he's an attention whore that wants the spotlight like he had in the early 'Cold fusion' days. Just my $.02

__________________"Remember that the goal of conspiracy rhetoric is to bog down the discussion, not to make progress toward a solution" Jay Windley

"How many leaves on the seventh branch of the fourth tree?" is meaningless when you are in the wrong forest: ozeco41

I agree. So what is going on here? It doesn't matter if he's evil, if he's convinced or if he's just seeking legitimisation; he's going about achieving any of these goals the wrong way.

How can someone clearly capable of writing real papers and getting them published in real journals, and who must, by his profession, know and understand publishing and peer-review, have sunk to such depths of ineptitude?

Well,.... staring into my magic eight-ball,.... I suspect that he's sufficiently delusional that he has to get The Truth out anyway he can. It's the same reason anyone publishes in a vanity journal; the idea that getting your name and ideas in press trumps the channels you use. And he's failed miserably at all the conventional channels.

Alternatively, this is just another scheme to milk the Truthers for more support. He knows that his audience will not be aware of the subtle differences between real and vanity journals, and he hopes that enough people will cite his vanity article to keep his gravy train alive.

Not if he's an attention whore that wants the spotlight like he had in the early 'Cold fusion' days. Just my $.02

But he'd get more attention by pitching a revised version of this limp-wristed 'paper' to a decent journal. I'm sure it'd be possible to put together a sensible and interesting critique of NIST that was as short on conspiracy claims as this effort is published in a real journal.

That's what I mean about ineptitude. If the plan is to be an attention-whore, there are a trillion better ways than vanity publication in an obscure, badly-regarded on-line journal. And he must know that, as someone with previous experience of real publishing.

__________________- ""My tribe has a saying: 'If you're bleeding, look for a man with scars'" - Leela, Doctor Who 'Robots of Death'.

How can someone clearly capable of writing real papers and getting them published in real journals, and who must, by his profession, know and understand publishing and peer-review, have sunk to such depths of ineptitude?

It all makes sense only if Jones knows that he's full of it.

There is only one reason why Jones went through with this pathetic exersize: to allow the TM to - finally! - brag about having a peer-reviewed paper. That's it.

Just read his comments on 911 blogger and you'll see that he seems more concerned with putting the JREFers in their place than with actually exposing a conspiracy to the scientific/engineering community.

What was actually "reviewed" isn't nearly as important as the fact that something was reviewed. I suspect this is why he has so far played it safe with "things we agree on" rather than "here's what I think happened." Even then he could only get it published in a second-rate on-line journal that is only a few months old.

At least this is a tacit admission by Jones that his "Journal of 911 Studies" was a complete crock.

Well,.... staring into my magic eight-ball,.... I suspect that he's sufficiently delusional that he has to get The Truth out anyway he can. It's the same reason anyone publishes in a vanity journal; the idea that getting your name and ideas in press trumps the channels you use. And he's failed miserably at all the conventional channels.

Alternatively, this is just another scheme to milk the Truthers for more support. He knows that his audience will not be aware of the subtle differences between real and vanity journals, and he hopes that enough people will cite his vanity article to keep his gravy train alive.

I really suspect a bit of both....

This is what doesn't make sense for me - he's removed nearly all the conspiracy stuff from this letter. It's vapid, empty and, well, safe. With some work, something along these general lines could get published. If he wants to "get the truth out there", and believed in the veracity of his ideas, why did he choose to water his "truth" down to homoeopathic levels?

And if he's patsying Truthers, again, why the content and why the location? It is, as I said, inept, whatever his motive might be. I can't get my head around it.

We're both published academics (in different fields, of course, and my career is very, very nascent), so all these issues are glaringly obvious to us. Why weren't they to Jones?

__________________- ""My tribe has a saying: 'If you're bleeding, look for a man with scars'" - Leela, Doctor Who 'Robots of Death'.

There is only one reason why Jones went through with this pathetic exersize: to allow the TM to - finally! - brag about having a peer-reviewed paper. That's it.

What was actually "reviewed" isn't nearly as important as the fact that something was reviewed. I suspect this is why he has so far played it safe with "things we agree on" rather than "here's what I think happened."

Just read his comments on 911 blogger and you'll see that he seems more concerned with putting the JREFers in their place than with actually exposing a conspiracy to the scientific/engineering community.

Good point. I guess I'm trying to put myself in his shoes to some extent - if I REALLY believed (however erroneously) that 3,000 people were murdered by my own government, and that I had the technical expertise to be able to prove it, how would I act?

It certainly wouldn't be the way Jones is.

__________________- ""My tribe has a saying: 'If you're bleeding, look for a man with scars'" - Leela, Doctor Who 'Robots of Death'.

But he'd get more attention by pitching a revised version of this limp-wristed 'paper' to a decent journal. I'm sure it'd be possible to put together a sensible and interesting critique of NIST that was as short on conspiracy claims as this effort is published in a real journal.

That's what I mean about ineptitude. If the plan is to be an attention-whore, there are a trillion better ways than vanity publication in an obscure, badly-regarded on-line journal. And he must know that, as someone with previous experience of real publishing.

If it was totally wrong and you knew it would you pitch it to real scrutiny? I think he hopes no one that will challenge him in the real world will ever read it. He's looking for more attention from the only people that are paying attention in the first place.

__________________"Remember that the goal of conspiracy rhetoric is to bog down the discussion, not to make progress toward a solution" Jay Windley

"How many leaves on the seventh branch of the fourth tree?" is meaningless when you are in the wrong forest: ozeco41

If it was totally wrong and you knew it would you pitch it to real scrutiny? I think he hopes no one that will challenge him in the real world will ever read it. He's looking for more attention from the only people that are paying attention in the first place.

So you're going with "conman" rather than "deluded"? It does seem to fit his behaviours better...

__________________- ""My tribe has a saying: 'If you're bleeding, look for a man with scars'" - Leela, Doctor Who 'Robots of Death'.

This is what doesn't make sense for me - he's removed nearly all the conspiracy stuff from this letter. It's vapid, empty and, well, safe. With some work, something along these general lines could get published. If he wants to "get the truth out there", and believed in the veracity of his ideas, why did he choose to water his "truth" down to homoeopathic levels?

And if he's patsying Truthers, again, why the content and why the location? It is, as I said, inept, whatever his motive might be. I can't get my head around it.

Ya know what's really sad? We see on 911 blogger exactly why he's done it the way he has.

Even after watering down the "truth" to JAQ-off levels, publishing in a no-name journal, and doing away with his microspheres (at least in this paper)....his stupid followers are still overjoyed!

This publication has probably bought Jones another year or two worth of credibilty with the legions of single white males wearing creepy black 9/11 t-shirts.

Why would that be unfortunate? If Mr. Alam spots a business opportunity (low-cost scientific publishing, possibly motivated by the idea that scientists in the Third World can access more information for free) and hires appropriate experts to help him run it while he manages the "business" aspect of it, I don't see that as a bad thing.

It would be unfortunate because Alam isn't listed as an editor, and if he really isn't involved in editorial decisions and/or lacks expertise in civil engineering, he shouldn't be the one responding.

__________________Handy responses to conspiracy theorists' claims:
1) "I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." --Charles Babbage
2) "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong." --Wolfgang Pauli
3) "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." --Inigo Montoya

Ya know what's really sad? We see on 911 blogger exactly why he's done it the way he has.

Even after watering down the "truth" to JAQ-off levels, publishing in a no-name journal, and doing away with his microspheres (at least in this paper)....his stupid followers are still overjoyed!

This publication has probably bought Jones another year or two worth of credibilty with the legions of single white males wearing creepy black 9/11 t-shirts.

I suspect that's all he wanted out of this.

You're right. It's a tragedy, but a revealing one. If he believed in this stuff, he'd get it published somewhere rigorous, and would still have the same reaction from his goons. I think his choice of journal is symptomatic of a lack of confidence in even his own words.

I mean, I cannot for the life of me understand why someone who professes absolute belief in a murdering conspiracy of his countrymen is content to act in such a banal way. I also can't understand why anyone believes this crapoloa after more than a cursory glance, and I guess I never will.

__________________- ""My tribe has a saying: 'If you're bleeding, look for a man with scars'" - Leela, Doctor Who 'Robots of Death'.

And if Jones is still reading this, could he please include the complete quote from NIST, not just the part where NIST state "...we are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse". He repeats this quote mine twice in his little paper.

NIST carried its analysis to the point where the buildings reached global instability. At this point, because of the magnitude of deflections and the number of failures occurring, the computer models are not able to converge on a solution. Your letter contends that NIST's report violates the Information Quality Standard of "utility". NIST believes that the report has utility. In fact, the codes and standards bodies are already taking actions to improve building and fire codes and standards based on the findings of the WTC Investigation. As we mentioned previously, we are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse.

Be honest Jones. Wasn't it the magnitude of deflections and the number of failures occurring, that prevent the computer models from being able to converge on a solution, and NIST from claiming they can provide a full explanation of the collapse?

I'm hesitant to mention this, as it could be construed as stereotyping, but I feel it's a legitimate issue in this case.

From a segment by NPR's intelligence correspondent, Mary-Louise Kelly, describing a visit to a Pakistani madrassa (religious school):

Quote:

But [headmaster Sami] Ul-Haq did offer up some thoughts distinctly at odds with the U.S. world view. . . . he argued that the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan was illegitimate because -- he claims -- the Sept. 11 attacks were not the work of al-Qaida. . . .

This is not a minority view in Pakistan. Over two weeks -- and dozens of interviews -- I met only a handful of people who say they believe the U.S. account of what happened on Sept. 11. From taxi drivers to senior government officials, the far more common view is that Israeli or U.S. intelligence orchestrated the attacks.

I've also heard Kelly this issue on one of NPR's talk shows; she stated that she had met with a large group of Pakistani academics (who of course ought to know better) who were all thoroughly convinced that the attacks had been staged. I think this is the audio, but I can't be certain, as the sound is out on my computer here at work.

__________________Handy responses to conspiracy theorists' claims:
1) "I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." --Charles Babbage
2) "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong." --Wolfgang Pauli
3) "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." --Inigo Montoya

I don't think that kind of borderline racist ad-hominem is necessary, or justified, Spit. There's plenty wrong here without resorting to lazy stereotypes.

Erm, do you feel that Kelly's reports are "borderline racist" and stereotyping?

__________________Handy responses to conspiracy theorists' claims:
1) "I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." --Charles Babbage
2) "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong." --Wolfgang Pauli
3) "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." --Inigo Montoya

I don't think that kind of borderline racist ad-hominem is necessary, or justified, Spit. There's plenty wrong here without resorting to lazy stereotypes.

Not sure its racist; The world (or at least parts of it) blames all Islam for 9/11 and those who know themselves to be innocent of that crime will of course be drawn to the belief that nobody in their camp would have done such a thing.

Most Islamic people, indeed even most fundamentalist Islamic people, do not condone terroristic murder to advance their cause, and indeed rightly see it as doing actual DAMAGE to that cause.

Can't say I wouldn't be tempted to adopt that position were I in their shoes.

-Ben

__________________For what doth it profit a man, to fix one bug, but crash the system?

Not sure its racist; The world (or at least parts of it) blames all Islam for 9/11 and those who know themselves to be innocent of that crime will of course be drawn to the belief that nobody in their camp would have done such a thing.

Most Islamic people, indeed even most fundamentalist Islamic people, do not condone terroristic murder to advance their cause, and indeed rightly see it as doing actual DAMAGE to that cause.

Can't say I wouldn't be tempted to adopt that position were I in their shoes.

-Ben

Whilst that may, or may not, be true, you do not know that Alam shares this position, or even if he's a Muslim. Spitfire seemed to bring up this info because he felt it was relevant - and it is only relevant if you assign these beliefs to Alam or his co-workers based on the singular fact that they are from Pakistan. Ergo, it is racist.

Guys, we don't need to go down this route. The paper and the journal are shoddy enough without the need for these types of claims, which are the every definition of ad hominems.

__________________- ""My tribe has a saying: 'If you're bleeding, look for a man with scars'" - Leela, Doctor Who 'Robots of Death'.

No, but the allegation that because this Journal is published in Pakistan automatically means that the Editor-in-Chief is a credulous dupe is.

Where did I say any of this? Frankly, you're really jumping to conclusions here.

Quote:

Where this journal is published, and the nationality of its founder, is irrelevant.

The issue, as I see it, is how this junk paper made it into a supposedly peer-reviewed journal. I think that potential political bias of the editorial staff and/or peer reviewers is a perfectly legitimate avenue of inquiry.

__________________Handy responses to conspiracy theorists' claims:
1) "I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." --Charles Babbage
2) "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong." --Wolfgang Pauli
3) "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." --Inigo Montoya

Whilst that may, or may not, be true, you do not know that Alam shares this position, or even if he's a Muslim. Spitfire seemed to bring up this info because he felt it was relevant - and it is only relevant if you assign these beliefs to Alam or his co-workers based on the singular fact that they are from Pakistan. Ergo, it is racist.

Guys, we don't need to go down this route. The paper and the journal are shoddy enough without the need for these types of claims, which are the every definition of ad hominems.

Perhaps I should have made myself clearer in my first post; I didn't mean to imply that I'm sure that this is the case. I just feel that the matter warrants further investigation.

__________________Handy responses to conspiracy theorists' claims:
1) "I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." --Charles Babbage
2) "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong." --Wolfgang Pauli
3) "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." --Inigo Montoya

Where did I say any of this? Frankly, you're really jumping to conclusions here.

So why did you think that the info your provided was relevant, then? All it said was that some people in Pakistan think 9/11 was an inside job. So what? Some people in America think that 9/11 was an inside job.

If you think this is relevant at all, you want to confer the stereotypical view of the opinions of Pakistanis onto Mr Alam, simply because he also happens to be Pakistani. That's textbook racist ad hominem.

You don't know what Mr Alam believes, or even if he's a Muslim. That you assume to know (or presume) based purely on his nationality is inappropriate, unnecessary and, yes, racist.

__________________- ""My tribe has a saying: 'If you're bleeding, look for a man with scars'" - Leela, Doctor Who 'Robots of Death'.

Perhaps I should have made myself clearer in my first post; I didn't mean to imply that I'm sure that this is the case. I just feel that the matter warrants further investigation.

Well, I don't, really. Mr Alam (as we've already discussed) probably had nothing to do with the peer-review or the decision to publish in the first place. His nationality is basically irrelevant to the (lack of) quality of his journal or Jones' paper. To pretend otherwise gives the Truthers easy ammo, their favourite kind.

__________________- ""My tribe has a saying: 'If you're bleeding, look for a man with scars'" - Leela, Doctor Who 'Robots of Death'.